


doubt truth to be a liar (never doubt I love)

by CapnJack



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, and other musings, post 5x23, what exactly makes love True?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:30:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapnJack/pseuds/CapnJack
Summary: Even now, weeks on, Hell still clutches at his back.It murmurs in his ear, brushes white hot caresses down his spine until he spasms, and conjures the scent of smoke and rotting flesh no matter how long he spends scrubbing his clothes to get it out. His neck occasionally smarts with phantom pain, and in hostile, fleeting flashes, the streets of his home burn in a mirage of orange and he panics, clutching at whomever is near to him to pull him back to the world above. In his quieter moments, he can hear the ground whispering, beckoning him back into the darkness underneath.Zeus had put him back where he belonged, he daren’t doubt that; the souls of the departed do not always agree.--In the weeks that follow their return from the Underworld, Killian begins to question new revelations that have changed everything. CS, with referenced Milah/Killian.





	doubt truth to be a liar (never doubt I love)

**Author's Note:**

> *stretches writing muscles* 
> 
> it's been a while since I have written for CS - hopefully I still can! this is set in a vague reality where our heroes are granted a little time to rest and reflect between the end of series 5 and the beginning of series 6. captain swan at its core, but is also essentially my ode to the lovely killian/milah. 
> 
> the title is pinched from Hamlet.
> 
> as always, feel free to come say hey @captainjayharkness. I hope you guys enjoy!

Even now, weeks on, Hell still clutches at his back.

It murmurs in his ear, brushes white hot caresses down his spine until he spasms, and conjures the scent of smoke and rotting flesh no matter how long he spends scrubbing his clothes to get it out. His neck occasionally smarts with phantom pain, and in hostile, fleeting flashes, the streets of his home burn in a mirage of orange and he panics, clutching at whomever is near to him to pull him back to the world above. In his quieter moments, he can hear the ground whispering, beckoning him back into the darkness underneath. 

Zeus had put him back where he belonged, he daren’t doubt that; the souls of the departed do not always agree. 

No matter how many times his friends suggest it might help, he does not return to the park. Not when a drop of his blood into the lake, the blood of a man restored, might lure the unworldly mist and summon the only beings with the power to drag him back to the Underworld. When he considers it, he cannot stop his breath from catching.

These are some of the new truths for Killian Jones. Not all, but some. 

Others are far more pleasant. 

Like the way he can wake up beside Emma in a house they call their own, and have her only tuck herself deeper into his side. The way he can join the Charmings for dinner at Granny’s without remark, how he can take Henry sailing when the weather is fair, how willing Regina is to trade barbs over a game of darts instead of a clash of wills; after their ordeals over the past year, he is finally a proud, welcome member of their family. It wasn’t just Emma’s quest to rescue him, it was all of theirs. He is happy. And when his soul burns red Killian can make love to Emma and she will be right there with him, loving him, begging for the sun to rise. 

He loves Emma more than anything in any realm. This is not a new truth for Killian Jones. 

What is, however, is the strength of that love. True Love, capital T, capital L. Emma lying atop him as an ancient door creaks open, _you chose me_. The most powerful magic of all, and he and Emma share it. That knowledge bolsters their interactions, pulls smiles from a light inside of him whenever it is mentioned, becomes the foundation for many a teasing jest mumbled into the juncture of her neck while she giggles into his shoulder. 

Other than that, nothing feels different.

And it’s been gnawing away at him.

Emma Swan is his True Love. True Love like the kind that meant Snow White and Prince Charming could share a heart, the kind that could revive Henry from a sleeping curse, that could rescue entire worlds from darkness. With as much as he loves Emma, this does not feel entirely beyond the realm of reason. When they are together he feels like he can make entire kingdoms collide. That said, there wasn’t some shining moment he decided what he felt for her was pure — it built, it pounded against him gently first until it cascaded to a roar that nearly overwhelmed his senses. He didn’t _know_ he felt it until he realised the ringing in his ears had already been there for what felt like centuries.

The only trouble is, this isn’t the only time he’s felt this way. 

“What is it that makes love _True?_ ” he queries one afternoon, when he can suppress the question no longer. Beside him Snow starts, and he realises that although his thoughts have been full of their usual tumult, they had been working quite pleasantly in silence. 

After lunch, David and Emma had been called away on some minor emergency on the other side of Storybrooke, and after they had insisted they would not need any assistance he had volunteered to stay with Snow and finish clearing up. They settled easily into a routine, her washing and him drying, and as he watched her he couldn’t help but imagine she was some sort of authority on the subject of True Love; she and David were the staple pair, surely. The story of Snow White and Prince Charming was practically synonymous with the concept. So, without thinking, he blurts the question forward. 

When Snow turns to look at him curiously he feels a warm flush creep up from his collar, so he busies himself with putting a plate away, balancing the cloth on his hook.

“What do you mean?” she asks, not unkindly. 

Killian offers an abashed shrug. “Just — this whole _True Love_ palaver. I’m not entirely certain I understand it.”

Snow laughs. “I don’t know if there’s anything to _understand_ ,” she smiles as if he’s a child making a funny remark about something straightforward, and it irks him slightly. “You just feel it. You must know what I mean, you and Emma have it.”

“No, I do, I do _feel_ it,” he says, drawing out the word, “I would do anything for Emma and she for me. What I mean is… who _decides?_ Who decides when the love a heart feels is True or — or just regular love?”

( _Is it wonderful_ , she had breathed, _to travel so much?_

He had told her of the air filled with spices, of distant queens in fleeting kingdoms —

— Sometimes he thinks he may have loved her even then.)

“Is there such a thing as regular love?”

“Well,” Killian scratches behind his ear, “not every impassioned couple has the ability to break a curse.”

“It’s not about that,” she turns fully to face him, drying her hands on a dishcloth. “It’s about building something together over time, it’s about sacrifice.” She lets out a long sigh. “I’ve never loved anybody like I love David. It’s just _more_. And those are all the answers I have, I’m afraid.” 

She nudges his shoulder playfully with hers, and he knows she means to lighten the mood, but all she has said only vexes him further. 

“I’m not a young man. I’ve loved before Emma,” it’s not quite a confession when the entirety of Storybrooke knew about his feud with the Crocodile, “fiercely. I would’ve easily given my life for her — I tried to, she didn’t let me.” He leans heavily against the counter, and although he can see Snow’s expression shifting into one of sympathy, he presses on. “But with all this talk of True Love, of its rarity, that you should consider yourself lucky to have felt it _once_ …” Killian shrugs helplessly. “What does that mean for Milah?”

He feels a squeeze on his upper arm, sees Snow’s hand resting there. “Oh, Killian.”

“Did I not love her, then?” Three hundred years of all-encompassing grief and a vehement desire for revenge would, to him, suggest the contrary. Which left another possibility clutching suddenly at his insides with anguish. “Or did she not love me?” 

The mere idea of it makes him seize up. She had risked Hades’ wrath to help Emma and the others get to him in the Underworld, and had lost her soul to eternal torment in the process. Even the satisfaction of knowing that Hades had been destroyed isn’t quite enough to soothe that particular ache. What if she had never truly loved him? 

“Have you spoken to Emma about this?” Snow asks gently. Killian frowns, shakes his head. He doesn’t exactly think bringing up his past love is the most romantic of conversations. “I think you should.”

She’s probably right. 

“But I will say this,” she continues, “what you and Emma have… it’s special. But it doesn’t make what came before any less so. We are _all_ who we are because of our experiences.” She rises on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. “You’ve fought hard for your happiness — please remember to enjoy it.” 

She leaves him in the kitchen then, her words having done little to soothe his troubled mind.

-/-

Killian takes a moment to observe the house they have built together as Emma rises from her position nestled into his side on the sofa. She reaches for their discarded plates, and heads out into the kitchen. 

The room had felt enormous when she had first welcomed him inside it, all bare walls and scarcely populated floor space — it had been a reflection, really, on the darkened state of her mind that found itself projected onto the even colder space around them. Even when she had led him to the telescope and the stunning view of the sea he found it hard to imagine making a home out of it. Yet, on their return from the Underworld, they had done exactly that. 

A fire burns in the hearth, bright and warm, golden light flickering from memory to memory across the room. The once exposed walls are now lined with Henry’s schoolwork, with photos of the Charmings, of Regina, of Robin. _Robin_. The man whose soul had been lost because of Emma’s quest to save him. They both owe him so much, it had felt important to honour him some way as they moved forward; he would never be forgotten.

Killian had never even considered finding a home apart from the sea — he had been abandoned first on the ocean, lost his brother to its lure, it was hard to even fathom another person becoming a reason to maroon himself away from its natural pull. Yet when he sees pieces of the life he and Emma are just beginning to stitch together from their rags of broken things, it is impossible to ignore the reality. Anchored, but exquisitely happy. 

Lost in thought, Killian only just realises Emma has been speaking, her voice floating above the running of the tap in the next room. 

“I _told_ him if he wanted that kind of ‘favour’ he’d need to ask Regina — and whaddya know, he asks to stay at hers an extra night. He’s as transparent as they come. Still,” she continues, and he can hear the padding of her socks on the floor bringing her nearer, “we don’t mind the extra night on our own, do we?”

Mary Margaret’s advice rings quietly in his ear, like a murmur. When Killian lifts his head to see her standing in the doorway, he is as always stunned by her beauty. Even dressed down for an evening spent in their house, she could not appear lovelier. 

“Emma,” he says softly, and maybe it’s his tone or his mood all evening, but the utterance gives her pause, “may I talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” she responds automatically, and as she crosses the room and drops down next to him he can see the light furrow in her brow. He wants nothing more than to smooth it over with his thumb, kiss the uncertainty from the line of her mouth. Trepidation stays his hand. 

When he doesn’t immediately respond, Emma turns to face him on the sofa and reaches a hand across to squeeze his arm. “You were thrashing about in your sleep again last night.” 

Hades had him dangled above the river of lost souls, only that time Emma had not made it before he found oblivion. 

“Is it —?”

“Aye,” he says, partly to stop her dwelling on the subject. They had spoken enough of his ordeal to last a lifetime. “But I find my mind is frayed with thoughts of a different kind.” She waits, her expression open and kind. It is so far from the walls she threw up the moment they met that his heart squeezes with gratitude — it becomes stifling to even consider revealing that which he had quietly admitted to her mother that morning. “I don’t want to hurt you, Swan.”

(And perhaps maybe a year ago, that comment may have spooked her.) 

Emma lifts his hand and squeezes it. Quietly determined. “Go ahead.” 

“Recently,” he starts, and it is difficult to find the words, “recently I can’t help feeling… I love you,” he hastens to assure her, “and I know you love me. That this love is _True_. We have proof of that.” 

“No broken curses in sight but we did open a creepy old door.” 

Killian breathes out a laugh to match the glimmer of amusement in her expression, the way her mouth is tugged gently into a smirk. He feels some of the tension in his shoulders ease away even as he is drawn back into solemnity. 

“I just — recently, I can’t help but feel this… _veneration_ of what lies between us makes me a traitor to an old love.” 

Emma’s eyes dawn with understanding. She nods slowly once. 

“Milah.” 

“It sounds ridiculous.” 

“Hey, I met her, remember?” Emma sidesteps his attempt at a dismissal with ease. “She was kind, and brave, and nothing about you wanting to honour her memory is ridiculous.”

Killian slips his hand out of Emma’s, runs it through his hair. 

“I find myself doubting even that which I’ve always taken for truth. Did she and I not love each other as much as you and I do? Why is one hailed as _True_ where the other just… was?” He sighs. “I even pestered your mother today, such is the extent of my anxiety.”

_Was he merely a fool?_

Emma had turned her face slightly away from him, staring into the hearth with a soft frown, thoughtful in its most open corners. It makes Killian squirm to see it, and he instantly wishes he hadn’t been so thoughtless as to follow Snow White’s advice.

(Of _course_ she would advocate for total honesty, spilling secrets was practically her modus operandi).

“I’m sorry.” He means it with a depth and severity he cannot measure, and reaches for her hand again. “I want to just enjoy what we have. I wish I weren’t thinking this way.” 

“I love that you are.”

 _A damn lucky fool_. 

Killian’s bemusement must have shown on his face, because Emma smiles kindly as if he were Henry asking for help with a particularly challenging mathematical problem. 

“You think I haven’t had similar thoughts?” she muses. “I loved before you too, you know.” 

A vision of Baelfire stuns him then, the familiar rush of guilt and anguish and sorrow coming to the fore before he attempts to soothe them with thoughts of the peace of their last encounter. With Emma’s love, quietly earned and steadfastly valued. He knows the young man would approve — he can feel it in the deepest chambers of his heart.

“Neal might not have always been brave, but he was when it counted. He died for me and Henry. You and me, we’re…” Emma hesitates, and he can see her searching for the right words to pluck from the space between them. “We’re different to Mom and Dad. They fought hard for their love, sure, but they’ve never _lost_. Not really. Not the way you and I have.” 

( _I love you_ , she had whispered, before crumpling into his arms — 

— the beast had laughed, _cackled_ , taunted the extent of his despair — 

_Is it wonderful_ , she had breathed once, _to travel so much?_ )

“I never thought I would love again after Neal. I imagine things were the same for you.” 

He had spent 300 years convinced he never would, he never _could_. Had foregone all else in his pursuit of revenge. 

Until he met her. 

“Aye,” he agrees, needlessly. She knows the answer already. 

“Then maybe —” Emma begins with a renewed sense of purpose, adjusts her position next to him, demands his full focus as she tosses some of her hair over her shoulder impatiently. “Maybe it’s not some _secret power_ or magical authority that decides what’s different this time. Maybe it’s just us.” 

He frowns, waits for her to continue. 

“We _chose_ each other, Killian. After everything that’s happened to us.”

He thinks back to the test that had engulfed him in flame, how Emma had launched herself at him instead of her own heart. 

“You chose me,” he echoes that moment with wonder, his mouth beginning to lift into a smile. 

She mirrors it. “And you chose me.” As she leans forward he meets her halfway, allows the gentlest press of her lips to his before she pulls back. “I wanted to believe in us, so I did. And here we are.” 

And it’s a damn near perfect place to be. 

“Here we are.” 

“It doesn’t mean we loved them less. It just means we loved again.”

He has no idea if they have reached a real conclusion – whether the breadth of _True Love_ can really be measured in such a way — but he figures if mystical scales buried under miles of rock beneath the mortal realm are authorised to make that judgement, then so are they. It mutes the stir of his mind, in any case. The Milah of his soul can continue to smile, unimpeded by the cloud of his own uncertainty. They had loved. Bloody hell, they had loved. And they had lost. 

Zeus had made it clear enough; he was where he belonged now.

“I like that,” he decides, kissing her again because he can’t _not_ do it. 

“Me too.”

“I like _you_.”

Emma laughs, and it’s an open and honest sound. “Yeah, the feeling’s mutual.” 

As the embers die he finds comfort with her long into the night. When they make love he watches stars burst around them, feels her warmth carry him into a dreamless sleep. With her, he need not worry where his home might be anymore. The earth does not beckon him beneath its shell, and as the dark stretches until morning he does not again doubt that the sun will rise. 

He knows it with a certainty, a surety, one only born of the privilege to deeply love, and be loved deeply in return.


End file.
